-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONCERT IN LAS VEGAS
On March 6, 2011 Celine Dion gave the first of a series of several dress rehearsals for the upcoming residency show "Celine", at the Colosseum of the Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, USA. This dress rehearsal was open only to family, friends and some employees of the Caesars Palace. The show included several videos of Celine with her family, some taken from "Through The Eyes Of The World" and some were new. There were many changes of clothes. Celine performed "Open arms", "Where does my heart beat now", "Because you loved me" and a medley with the songs: "It´s all coming back to me now" and "The power of love". After a costume change, she performed "(If you can´t sing it) You´ll have to swing it (Mr. Paganini)", "Lullabye (Goodnight, my angel)" and "The reason". Another medley (from James Bond) with the songs: "Goldfinger", "Diamonds are forever", "Nobody does it better" and "Live and let die". Celine also sang "At seventeen", "Beauty and the beast" in duet with the background vocal Barnev Valsaint, "Ne me quitte pas", "All by myself", a Michael Jackson medley, "Declaration of love", "Love can move mountains", "River deep, mountain high" and "My heart will go on". On this show, the Michael Jackson medlyey included the songs "Ben", "Man in the mirror" and "I just can´t stop loving you".
CONCERT IN LAS VEGAS
On March 10, 2011 Celine Dion gave another dress rehearsal for the upcoming residency show "Celine", at the Colosseum of the Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, USA. Just like the dress rehearsals on March 6, 2011, this show was open only to family, friends and some employees of the Caesars Palace. Several changes were respect the first dress rehearsal. The song "Declaration of love" was not performed by Celine on this show. It was performed by the backup singers during one of the costume changes. During the James Bond medley, the songs "Diamonds are forever" and "I just can´t stop loving you" were not performed. Finally, two new songs were added into the show, "How do you keep the music playing?" (in duet with a hologram version of Celine) and "Overjoyed" (in duet with a hologram version of Stevie Wonder).
CONCERT IN LAS VEGAS
On March 12, 2011 Celine Dion gave another dress rehearsal for the upcoming residency show "Celine", at the Colosseum of the Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, USA. Just like the previous dress rehearsals, this show was open only to family, friends and some employees of the Caesars Palace. The show started with screen lowers in front of curtain and begins to show footage of the last show of "A New Day…", parts of the "Taking Chances World Tour" and then, part of the press conference she had on February 16, 2011 in Las Vegas. It then reads something about that night in Vegas and the crowd starts cheering. That night, Celine performs "Open arms", in wich the curtain opens just barely and she appears. After she sings the first few lines, the curtain opens completely and revels the orchestra. There is another white curtain behind the red curtain that falls from the top and is pulled off stage very quickly and dramatically (if that makes sense), creating a great effect. She is wearing a long gorgeous sparkly silver dress that is strapless and very form fitting all the way down. During "Where does my heart beat now" there are four smaller video screens that come down around Celine that are all playing different videos of her early performances. Then, she sings "Because you loved me", "It´s all coming back to me now" and "Power of love". These two last in a standard medley. After a costume change, during a solo violin by musician, Jean-Sébastien Carré, Celine sings "(If you can´t sing it) You´ll have to swing it (Mr. Paganini)" in a long grey dress with a long slit up the side of her leg. Then it came "Lullabye (Goodnight, my angel)" in wich large video screen shows family footage that is priceless. And then, "The reason". During the James Bond medley, she comes out in a long black, glittery dress with long sleeves and once again, a long slit up the side of the leg. She has on bold, strappy black heels, the look is incredibly sexy and she owns it and she sings "Goldfinger", "Nobody does it better" and "Live and let die". After another costume change, she comes out wearing a long white one shoulder dress with (once again) a long slit on the side all the way up to nearly her hip. She sits down on the stairs with André Coutu (guitarist) and during her introduction for the song, jokes how she doesn´t know how she’s going to sit in this dress for it kept getting caught on her heels and the open part of the slit kept falling open while she tried to keep it closed while she was sitting. It was all very entertaining. She sings "At seventeen" and "Beauty and the beast" in duet with the background vocal, Barnev Valsaint. Then, "Ne me quitte pas". She sings it with so much emotion. She began crying a couple of times in the middle of the song and resorted to speaking some of the lines. This was the only song where they showed a close up of her face on the big screen behind her for the entire song. After that, she sings "All by myself". Another costume change while an instrumental tribute to Michael Jackson sounded with elements of "Smooth criminal," "Billie jean," and "Thriller". Celine performs "Ben" and "Man in the mirror". During the medley, she comes out in white skinny jeans and a silver jacket that is Michael Jackson-esque, very edgy and looks great. She starts singing in front of the curtain then the curtain opens and everybody from the orchestra is sitting on a stool (without instruments) and snap along with the music. Then, Celine sings "Love can move mountains" and "River deep, mountain high". For the finale, Celine comes out in the blue/aqua dress to performs "My heart will go on".
CONCERT IN LAS VEGAS
On March 15, 2011 Celine Dion performed at the Colosseum of the Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, USA with the new residency show, "Celine". This was the opening night for this new show and it was a magnificent masterpiece. The show opens with an obligatory video clip. But this is a brilliant edit as you go around the world in 80 seconds with Celine on her most recent global tour. The high-octane video roars along, starting from the finale show at Caesars Palace back on December 15, 2007, and has shots in the limo going back to the family´s home in Lake Las Vegas with young son Rene Charles asking plaintively that night "What do we do now? Where do we go now?". Husband, father and manager Rene Angelil and Celine promise him that they will return one day to Caesars Palace, and with that, the video switches to her arrival a month ago as the curtain rises to reveal Celine herself now on March 15, 2011. In another brief video clip to cover a gown change later in the show, there´s incredibly personal, never-before-seen video portraits at home soon after the successful hospital delivery of twin boys Eddy and Nelson conceived after five failed in-vitro attempts. There´s another precious moment captured with Celine wide awake on their private jet nursing one of the newborn twins and Rene fast asleep with the other twin in the same position. In the show opener, Celine stands in a shimmering gold and ivory Armani gown at center stage with the world´s largest pure white billowing curtain. The stage is filled wall to wall with the orchestra, band and three backup singers. It´s the first wow moment of the night. As she sings the first number with tear-filled eyes, 11 painting-sized video screens drop from the ceiling amid threads of burning candleholders to show how she sung it over the years at different ages. It´s all a very original and dramatic impact, particularly as the orchestra´s six-sectioned platform floats forward to the audience. Celine, who also wears stunning outfits from Versace, Givenchy, Balmain and Elie Saab, is refreshingly candid talking with the audience at the show´s first possible moment: "This is a dream come true. We are overjoyed at what has happened and that we are back at Caesars. But I am still nervous about it". And in a reference to Rene´s poker-playing skills at the tables: "It´s an even bigger dream come true for Rene". The concert was full of magic moments. There were few changes respect the dress rehearsals the week before as in during "River deep, mountain high", in wich Celine wore a golden dress. Celine performed the songs: "Open arms", "Where does my heart beat now", a medley with "Because you loved me", "It´s all coming back to me now" and "The power of love". After a costume change, "(If you can´t sing it) You´ll have to swing it (Mr. Paganini)", "Lullabye (Goodnight, my angel)" and "The reason". After another costume change, she´s back in a black sequined gown for "Goldfinger" and the mammoth video wall is alive with what must be 200 feet of shattering colorful animation that should start the next 007 movie. Look closely and you´ll spot Rene Charles as the young secret agent. It´s cutting-edge technology for a total multimedia environment created by Moment Factory of Montreal, who also dealt another winning card with the water screen. Every image, filmed with special cameras or created electronically, seen in the Colosseum was created specifically for the new show. The songs "Nobody does it better" and "Live and let die", complete end the James Bond medley. Celine also performs "How do you keep the music playing?" in duet with a hologram version of herself. It´s the duet you never ever dreamed could happen. The audience goes into a mesmerized "is it live or recorded" trance. Celine glows with radiance as the new Queen of the Strip and nobly glides slowly down the aisle. Nobody would dare reach out to touch her or interrupt the beauty of her strong, powerful voice. It´s such a reverential and awesome moment that it´s certain to cause spine-tingling and hair-raising experiences for every Colosseum spectator. The silence is so intense you could hear a pin drop, except for the audible intake of breath as the audience inhales. You suddenly realize the image of Celine onstage is a hologram and a very remarkable, uncanny and extraordinary one. It takes the entire song for heaven-sent Celine to walk down the theater aisle in a bridal white, floor-length, robed gown to reach the stage steps. When she finishes the song and the applause and standing ovation have quieted, Celine breaks the tension beautifully, joking: "You should know how long it took to teach her to get it right". With the audience still reeling from that special effect, Celine produces another brilliant surprise, saying that her favorite duet over the years was with superstar singer Stevie Wonder. The curtain lifts on cue to show the pop prince at his piano. It´s the perfect double whammy. His hologram is so real, you´re very hard put to even dare think that it isn´t, as the real Celine and the imaged Stevie sing "Overjoyed". All of that wonder and excitement takes place in just one 10-minute section of the show. Yet the other 85 are just as filled with surprises and effects. It´s way more than the producers ever promised. Celine also performs "At seventeen", "Beauty and the beast" in duet with the background vocal Barnev Valsaint, "Ne me quitte pas" and "All by myself". After that, Celine zips into a gold sequined tuxedo jacket and tight leather pants for her Michael Jackson tribute, saying, "He changed my life. I learned English to sing like him". For "Man in the mirror", she´s backed by an 18-member finger-snapping choir and one closing shot of a smiling Michael in a picture frame. The finale leads from "River deep, mountain high" into her final wardrobe change of a green, bare-shouldered turquoise gown as she sings "My heart will go on". It´s an appropriate ending. The show is huge, totally terrific and titanic itself.
CONCERT IN LAS VEGAS
On March 16, 2011 Celine Dion performed her second concert at the Colosseum of the Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, USA with the residency show "Celine". According to some fans, who attended to the show, this second show was amazing, maybe because there were less stars and journalists, it seems more intimate, and there were more fans. The first thing that happens on the show is a video montage of Celine´s latest world tour and what she has been up to since her last Vegas show, "A New Day...". After the video, the curtain goes up and Celine is standing there in the beautiful white Armani Privé outfit to performed the first song, "Open arms". The show lasted around one hour and 45 minutes.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
